Most Companies Won't Deploy Windows 7 — Survey 429
angry tapir writes "Nearly six in 10 companies have no current plans to deploy Windows 7 by the end of next year, according to a new survey. Of 1,100 IT administrators who responded to the survey, 59.3 percent said they didn't have a plan to deploy Windows 7. (Full results, PDF.)"
I'll deploy Win7 (Score:5, Insightful)
When XP support ends in 2014. By then, Win7 will have been shaken out.
I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either (Score:3, Insightful)
You must be new here :) When was the last time that MS delivered everything it promised?
Talk about a misleading title (Score:5, Insightful)
"Have No current Plans" != "Won't Deploy"
Two years ago, my company had "No Current Plans" to move our MS Applications to their 2007 versions, but here we are, with Office/Exchange/Sharepoint all 2007.
"No Current Plans" may just mean just that... they don't have any plans. That's a far stretch from "we won't".
Re:I'll deploy Win7 (Score:1, Insightful)
When XP support ends in 2014. By then, Win7 will have been shaken out.
I love that optimism man, I guess you one of the guys that still vote for politicians on the basis of the promises they give!
Re:Their loss (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I almost pity Microsoft. (Score:1, Insightful)
Here's hoping people realize webapps are where it's at, for most things.
The industry waxes and wanes back and forth between client-server based systems, and thick clients.
Are you really sure you want Microsoft and other web companies as your mainframe? This phase will pass.
I don't know about you, but I want my data locally.
Re:Their loss (Score:4, Insightful)
What does 7 have that they need and don't have with XP? Does your company replace all the furniture every time Herman Miller comes out with a new line?
oh here we go with mainframe vs pc again.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the long run, they'll switch. Until everything becomes a webapp, the ecosystem almost demands it. Here's hoping people realize webapps are where it's at, for most things.
It's interesting, in that, so many people of the current generation see webapps and centralized computing as the new best thing.
See, some of us old people got into the PC revolution when we were kids because we were rebelling against centralized computing. We hated the account quotas and slowness of shared system resources in college, the straightjackets around information, and we wanted to smash all of that. We saw that giving people power tools like spreadsheets and desktop databases empowered them over the static mainframe systems of old, that a computer was something that you owned, was, well, a personal thing.
Quite frankly, if it wasn't for ISPs being such a PITA about bandwidth for uploads and hosting, and if, honestly, there was more adoption of IPv6 so that everyone could have their own address, we would see a lot more desktop to the internet hosting. A quadcore PC could easily host a blog or a facebook account. Indeed, I would be the next killer application would be a desktop app that lets you do what facebook does, except that you own your data, and the core web service is really only a directory to enable peer to peer communications.
Right on point (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, this is routine stuff but still think it's news worthy. What Microsoft could pull is to warn of a "critical exploit" in all versions of Windows prior to Windows 7 and make money.
When combined with Software Assurance, [wikipedia.org] this can work to move most businesses to Windows 7.
Trust me, Microsoft knows how businesses think and I am sure personnel have been hired to handle "stubborn" business accounts.
Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be new here. When did MS delivering what it promises have anything to do whether management decides it's time for an "upgrade"?
Re:So in 3 months (Score:5, Insightful)
t's gone from 83% that won't to 59.3%.
Based on that, if MS wait nine months there will be people buying two copies.
We get stories like this every time MS releases a new OS. There are the occasional flops like Windows ME and Vista that don't see widespread enterprise deployment but despite the universal predictions of doom you get each time most of them actually do end up being widely used in businesses. Examples include: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP, I remember all sorts of columnists, bloggers and other speculators crawling out of the woodwork and predicting businesses wouldn't use them. Particularly Windows 2000 and Windows XP who turned out to be widely used regardless.
How is this new? How does this article not fail? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is nothing new. This happened with windows NT, XP, 2003, Vista and it will continue to happen. Though most people who have tried windows 7 have stated they loved it. I've had it installed for months now and I have not experienced a single crash and my laptop is running faster with windows 7 then it did vista.
Wait until windows 7 is out for 6 months, has it's first patch and then come out with an verifiable/reliable article saying this information.
Re:Talk about a misleading title (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up.
This survey means absolutely nothing. It was taken before Microsoft announced a release date, and that means it's no longer relevant.
Considering that, the number is quite strong.
Windows 7 has a lot of mindshare as "Microsoft [finally] gets it right."
I don't mind burning some karma here, but you gotta call it like you see it.
Re:I'll deploy Win7 (Score:5, Insightful)
I love that optimism man, I guess you one of the guys that still vote for politicians on the basis of the promises they give!
Excellent analogy, but for a slightly different reason.
By the time we recognise that the current elected official sucks, there's an election right around the corner. That election not only offer promises of the new, but also allows us to forget the failures of the past.
The trouble with Microsoft is that we end up electing the same guy every time.
Not downgrading (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why would they? (Score:4, Insightful)
Employees are very happy with XP and cringe at change. So many complaints about the ribbon etc. when upgrading to Office 2007. Businesses will change to appease the management, not the employees.
Businesses will also change to appease Microsoft when suddenly they are found to not be abiding by the terms of the license, and the more cost-effective avenue is, interestingly enough, upgrade to [Office 2007|Win 7|Server 2008|etc].
In general, money talks. Businesses probably won't upgrade unless there is significant money to save, or there are feature or security enhancements they need.
Re:I'll deploy Win7 (Score:2, Insightful)
No MS peaked with Win 2k (Score:4, Insightful)
Kind of sad that Microsoft peaked with XP SP2, no?
Too funny. XP was not at all their peak. It was the start of the DECLINE. You want a great fast and lean OS that stayed out of the user's way, look at Win 2k.
Everyone on Slashdot harps on XP like it's this great OS, but it is NOT. I remember everyone here bitching about how about XP was compared to 2k (i.e. dog ass slow in comparison etc).
Frankly, if MS would have added decent USB support to Windows 2k, I would never have switched to XP.
History lesson (Score:5, Insightful)
They've gone through the same thing with each version of Windows that's been released. In 2003, less than 10% of corporate PCs were carrying XP. In 2005, it had only gone up to 38%. [betanews.com] That's an OS that'd been out for more than three years, and was up against the incumbent Win2000. If Win7 can hit about 40% within a year against an incumbent XP, then that's actually incredible progress.
Re:I almost pity Microsoft. (Score:2, Insightful)
You've hit the nail on the head. Being sure you own and control that data is the clincher. Having Google (and others) provide free beta webapps galore is nice, but at the end of the day many of us, be they home users or business, don't want their data to be hostage to anybody.
So these public services are somewhat limited by their own lack of security. Sometimes the terms even imply that the hoster takes away some of your rights over the data! That's not exactly the same as a payed service, with a contract that protects your rights.
Re:Still using IE6 (Score:5, Insightful)
Chances are if someone's participating in a discussion on Slashdot, they're probably pretty technically savvy and don't require much training to adapt to a new but similar OS. Remember though, that most users are complete drooling, mouth breathing, knuckle dragging, blithering idiots, where if the task bar or splash screen looks different, they immediately switch off their brains because they can't handle the change. These are the people that will require "training", or else they'll refuse to do their jobs because they "don't know the new system."
Personally all the training I think they should require is "READ THE FUCKING SCREEN, IDIOT", but that's just me.
Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either (Score:3, Insightful)
And why upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft has more or less contributed to the ultimate demise of the PC in the work place. Because of all the features, and the lack of reliability stemming from the complexity of all these features, MS has created a maintenance nightmare. Business critical applications are now all web based (at least at my company, everything from HR to shipping to version control etc.). Can't remember the last time I fired up MS Word (I have used Excel).
So why upgrade? What is the one feature that Windows 7 has that I _NEED_?
More secure? What is 'more'? How about rock solid secure to the point I can deploy without special virus protection? Right now XP seems good enough.
Better manageability? Management at this time seems to be locking out users from doing things that are stupid/dangerous and forcing upgrades to cover vulnerabilities. Please see 1st question.
Re:My company won't be buying Windows 7 (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:So in 3 months (Score:4, Insightful)
And every time we get these stories, we also hear "we get these stories every time MS releases a new OS," along with predictions that the new OS will see just as high an adoption rate as the most successful of MS's OS releases. I recall the exact same predictions for Vista (which you yourself note was a flop). Honestly, I think success is a little less than certain at this point.
Re:no surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
If you say "I'm waiting until SP2" like a lot of people have already said... guess what, you have plans.
Really, this article is incredibly anti-newsworthy but let's face it, it's spun in a way that makes MS look bad and that's really all it takes to make it on Slashdot, right?
Re:Talk about a misleading title (Score:3, Insightful)
OS X? Ubuntu? FreeDOS? FreeBSD? MS Vista? Linspire? Xandros? Solaris?
Re:I'll deploy Win7 (Score:5, Insightful)
we don't see any point in replacing the existing OS considering the time and costs involved.
The summary implies 59.3% not using Win7 by end 2010. But if 40.7% are using it by then, that would be a spectacular takeup.
The time and cost to replace existing installations with Win7 decrease over time. When total cost of deployment is less than the savings resulting from the use of Win7, a company will switch. The article is simply quantifying the date at which 40% estimate this will happen.
Re:I'll deploy Win7 (Score:5, Insightful)
But 34 percent said they expected to deploy Windows 7 by the end of 2010, with 5.4 percent expected to install the OS by the end of the year.
Actually, if you ask me, the real news is that a full 34% is going to deploy Windows 7. That's a pretty big number for corporate deployments, see how slow transition was from 2K to XP.
Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either (Score:2, Insightful)
So you think that putting an hardware firewall will "solve" the security problem, but it's MS who doesn't understand what security actually means?
Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wouldnt make plans to deploy it either (Score:3, Insightful)
many companies are starting to realize that the 3-5 year cycle was based on the last 20 years of significant hardware advances even among common low-end desktop hardware, which has significantly tailed off over the last few years. We were tied into a 3-year lease plan for a while. Now, we're looking at machines from 3 years ago and realizing they run all we need just fine. Some people need new workstations for more capability, but that's by far the exception, not the rule.
Re:I'll deploy Win7 (Score:5, Insightful)
When total cost of deployment is less than the savings resulting from the use of Win7, a company will switch.
In other words: Not until Win XP is no longer a viable choice.
There are no savings resulting from the use of Win7. There are only migration and implementation costs.
Most enterprises have their apps certified on the XP platform. It takes hundreds if not thousands of man hours to update and verify functionality of each app. Not to mention that many enterprise applications such as SAP or Cisco does not support 64-bit Windows 7. 64-bit support for all enterprise apps is a dead-sure requirement for any enterprise considering a full upgrade to Win 7.
For a typical enterprise with 2000 deployed applications, this turns into a migration nightmare. The budget runs into the millions.
Note that migration cost for enterprises have nothing to do with windows 7 licensing. The software assurance means they're paying for windows 7 already, but prefer to stay on Windows XP just in order to avoid said migration costs.
I don't think we'll see wide-spread deployment of windows 7 until 2012-2013.
"Sales" in 2010 will probably look OK though due to software assurance.